Freedom
by Vingilot the Sky Ship
Summary: Thirteen years is a long time. The members of the Red Lotus found ways to while away the years, but that didn't make them pass any faster.
1. Chapter 1

**Freedom**

Zaheer sat with his legs folded, hands resting on his knees with his index fingers and thumbs pressed together in a loop. His eyes were shut and his head drooped just slightly, as if he were asleep. He had been sitting there for near a half hour, trying to let his mind drift away and flow into the Spirit World. Unfortunately, he thought as he shifted his posture for the third time that minute, it had gotten rather difficult to free his spirit from his body when that body had been trapped in a metal box. When he had been a free man, he'd been able to meditate into the Spirit World in a few minutes in even the most unpleasant circumstances.

Zaheer squirmed again, trying to find a way to sit comfortably on the cold stone floor. Abruptly he stood, abandoning the attempt. He'd try again in a little while; one of the first lessons he had learned was that trying to force your way into the Spirit World never worked. You either entered or you didn't. He flopped onto the slab he had for a bed and wondered, not for the first time, if the White Lotus knew exactly what they were doing to him.

Probably not, he conceded. Their misguided idealism made them soft and ineffectual, true, but it also kept them from knowingly torturing people. And for a member of the Red Lotus, that's what this imprisonment was. To someone who had dedicated his life to seeking true freedom, being shoved into this metal cage was a worse fate than death. Only two things kept him from just begging them to kill him already. First, so long as he was alive he still had a chance to change this world and break down the walls and chains that bound its people. Dying meant giving up on their mission and that Zaheer would _never_ do. The other reason was that doing so would require explaining _why _he would rather die than be imprisoned, which would involve explaining to them the way of the Red Lotus. Zaheer couldn't envision any of his team having betrayed the cause and he wouldn't be the first.

_No, that spot has already been taken._ Zaheer couldn't think of another explanation. Unalaq had betrayed them, that much was clear by now. Whether he had ratted out their attempt to take the avatar or merely stood by while it failed made no real difference in the long run. Early on, Zaheer had maintained the naïve hope that Unalaq would help break them out of their prisons. It had taken a depressingly long year to disabuse himself of that notion. Looking back, he had realized Unalaq's treachery was entirely predictable. The man had always been more interested in what he could gain rather than how he could serve. Zaheer had been meaning to put an end to that after they had secured the avatar but it seemed Unalaq had struck first. Without the other Red Lotus members to keep an eye on him, he was free to work in the shadows without interference. Zaheer doubted he would be putting too much effort in making the world a better place.

At first, being imprisoned wasn't _that _terrible. Zaheer passed the time by meditating, sometimes in the Spirit World sometimes not. He had managed to keep that talent of his a secret from his captors and had no intention of letting them learn of it. He'd taken care to be mentally present every morning when the guards brought the day's bowl of rice. He'd also made a point of exercising, such as he could in his cell. When his chance came, Zaheer wanted to be ready to act on it.

Only his chance never came. His trips into the Spirit World only inflamed his desire to escape his imprisonment, not reduce it like he had hoped. Every second he spent roaming the Spirit World uninhibited, only to return to his cramped cell rankled. As the weeks went on with no rescue, obtaining information about the physical world became his obsession. He began to grill any spirit he saw about whatever they knew. Unfortunately, that wasn't much, spirits by nature being mostly unconcerned with anything happening outside their immediate surroundings. As the weeks turned into months, he began to despair.

It was only by random chance that he ran into a fellow Red Lotus, Aiwei, at Xai Bau's Grove. Their talk was brief, as Aiwei had to return or blow his cover, but informative. He told Zaheer about Unalaq's treachery, and how he had help _build_ P'Li's prison. He told him how the rest of the Red Lotus had gone even deeper underground to avoid the White Lotus' sweeps for any of Zaheer and his friends' allies. They parted ways then, but not before Zaheer got Aiwei to promise to meet him back in the grove one week from then.

That week had been a trial. Zaheer's fury at Unalaq's betrayal impeded his meditation attempts. Instead of letting go of his earthly tethers, he fantasized of choking the life out of that smug, smarmy waterbender. It took nearly the entire week for him to work through that mental block and be able to return to the Spirit World. Zaheer managed it by focusing on the options his contact with Aiwei created, be it escape or merely information. He slid away from his body, entered the grove, and waited for Aiwei to make his appearance.

They spoke for what must have been hours, but Zaheer heard only one word. _No_. No, I will not help you or the other members of your cell escape prison. No, I won't be keeping you up to date on information about the outside world. No, I won't pass along messages to the other Red Lotus members for you. No.

Zaheer had barely been able to keep from raging at him. _We were supposed to change the world together, not cower in silence for fear of losing our comforts! _Zaheer wanted to shout at him, but all it would do would be to lose him the only ally he had, no matter how ineffectual. So instead he swallowed his rage and accepted Aiwei's betrayal. He told Aiwei that he would be back in the grove once every three days if he needed to speak to him and left him to his empty words and failed ideals.

That had been five years ago, more or less. Zaheer had spoken to Aiwei twice since then, neither time learning anything of importance. And now he might never speak to him again.

Zaheer angrily shook his head and paced around his cell. Self-pity was beneath him; his friends were undoubtedly suffering worse than he was. Ghazan loved freedom as much as, if not more than, Zaheer did and unlike Zaheer he didn't have the Spirit World as a retreat when the walls grew too oppressive. Ming Hua and P'Li were even worse off. Ming Hua was so dependent on her bending to do almost anything, being without water would reduce her to complete helplessness. And from what little Aiwei had told him about P'Li's prison, she was being kept at the brink of freezing to death. Being confined was nothing compared to that.

Or so he told himself, as the walls closed in all around him. Zaheer sat again, determined to clear his mind through meditation. His chance would come, and he _would_ be free again. He didn't know how, but he had faith. And until that day came, he would not allow this imprisonment to chain his spirit as it did his body. He would overcome this mental block, return to the Spirit World, and do what was in his power to help facilitate first his escape, then the changing of the world.

It would be eight years before Zaheer managed to return to the Spirit World.

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><p>A.N: Just a little dabble That popped into my head. Might do a chapter for each of the Red Lotus, let me know what you think.<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

There was some interest in a continuation of this story, so here's a Ghazan chapter. Decided to go in the order we first saw the Red Lotus members, so next up will be a Ming Hua chapter. Enjoy!

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><p><strong>Chapter 2<strong>

_Twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six… _

Up and down Ghazan went, his arms straining from the exertion. If there was one upside to being in prison, it would be how buff he was getting. On the outside, he'd been too lazy and unmotivated to actually bother working out. Now that he was stuck in a cage, however, he had little else to occupy his time.

He'd never been a man for routine, but he'd fallen into one all the same. Wake up, exercise, lunch, work out some more, dinner, then sleep. There were the odd variations here and there, days where he'd spend his mornings tracing patterns on the floor or the occasional evening he spent trying to meditate (working with a man like Zaheer made things rub off on you). It had rained about a week ago; he hadn't done anything that day other than sit and listen to sound of raindrops on the platform. But, in the end he fell back on the routine, even if he hated himself for it.

Before he had been imprisoned, if you had told Ghazan freedom could be a bad thing he'd have laughed in your face. Even before meeting Zaheer, he had lived his life doing whatever he wanted, regardless of what other people thought. His sister (and everyone else) told him it was impossible to bend lava. He could have listened and let their words limit who he was, but instead he just kept at his training. Days passed into weeks that passed into months, but in the end Izi ate her words when Ghazan turned the village square into a lava moat and back. A few weeks later, Zaheer had turned up with promises of making the world a better place. He had asked a steep price, having to leave behind his whole life to truly be hidden from the White Lotus, but Ghazan made that choice of his own free will.

_Forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty. _Ghazan dropped out of his pushup stance and spent a few moments sitting there resting, trying to bring his breathing back under control. He hopped up and grabbed two of the bars that made the framework of his cage and began some pull-ups. _One, two, three…_

Routine, Ghazan has always thought and Zaheer had agreed, was poison to creativity. He could feel his individuality shriveling up and dying as he rotted away in this cage. Even so, he needed it. The first few years had been the worst of his imprisonment, by far. He spent his days thinking about anything and everything that came to mind. He thought about Ming Hua, how she was handling her own prison stint. He wondered how Izi was doing, if there were any other lavabenders out there. He renamed the constellations, tried chatting up his guards (with little success), tried to stand on one foot for as long as possible. He didn't really care how he spent his time, since he was just waiting for Zaheer to rescue him. Their leader had always been brilliant, cunning, and above all capable. The idea that the White Lotus could hold him was absurd. But he never came.

_He would never abandon us. _Ghazan wasn't the same naïve boy who had left his village; he didn't honestly think his former cell leader would risk life and limb just to help him. Oh, they were friends, sure. Zaheer would save him if he could, Ghazan had no doubt. But in the end, the mission came first. If you put his freedom and the world's freedom on a scale, Ghazan knew what the result would be. But at the same time, Ghazan's lavabending was incredibly powerful. Powerful enough that freeing him would be the best course of action for the sake of the mission most of the time.

Whatever the reason, Zaheer never came. And so Ghazan practiced doing handstands, renamed the constellations again, and wondered the specifics of how his friends were being detained. But still, no rescue came. He paced the length of his cell, tried his hand at singing (he wasn't very good), and renamed the constellations yet again. As weeks passed into months, his energy dwindled. He spent more and more time sleeping, and when he was awake he often sat motionless in a corner of his cell. He ate less, and at some point the White Lotus stopped even bringing him more than one meal a day. He'd have probably ended up starving to death if he hadn't gotten encouragement from the most unlikely of sources.

"He's quieted down, hasn't he?" The guards' shift change had arrived and with it the return of a guard who'd been on vacation. Ghazan watched her chat with another guard with his head propped up against one of the cage's bars, too listless to bother actually supporting it. The guard she was talking to laughed. "Be thankful you missed his attempts at singing. I thought he was trying to drive us all mad with his screeching." _Bastard, I wasn't _that_ bad._ Ghazan didn't have to take that. He stood, to tell them off or blame them for making him that desperate for entertainment, but his legs buckled underneath him. _Have I grown so weak I can't even stand? _Somewhere, he heard snickering.

That had been his wakeup call. Ghazan began to eat more, moving back to multiple meals a day. He slept less but more regularly, no longer spending nights staring idly at the stars. When he felt he was strong enough, he even began to exercise. At first, the repetition chafed at him. Making the same motions over and over and over again was maddeningly dull. But every time he felt like lagging or giving up the sound of that snicker echoed through his mind again. He couldn't say what really drove him, whether it was the shame of his weakness or the hope that one day he could rip his wooden cage apart with his bare hands. All he knew was, he had to keep going.

They were counting on him, he knew. His friends. Just as he had counting on them to come rescue him. Well, he'd beat them to it. He'd get free all on his own and save everyone. Of them all, he probably had the best chance. The White Lotus had taken steps to nullify their respective bending abilities, he knew. Without water, Ming-Hua wouldn't be able to do much. P'Li was strong, and battle-hardened, but to keep her from firebending they'd need to lock her up somewhere cold, which would sap her strength. Obviously, Zaheer was much more capable than Ghazan was sans bending, but since he was a nonbender the White Lotus would undoubtedly take steps to counter his skills. Ghazan alone was physically able and unguarded enough to have a chance for escape.

Though it burned to admit it, his life had dramatically improved since he developed the routine. He had grown strong, far stronger than he had ever been before, and was only getting stronger. His attitude improved too. He was less angry and bitter now too, and the guards were a lot more receptive to him for it. Good behavior earned him all sorts of little privileges, like better meals, them bringing him the bathing bucket more frequently, things like that. Recently, they finally let him have a razor once a week. He had to give it back right away, but he'd finally been able to shave off that ridiculous hermit beard he'd been growing and trim up his moustache. It was amazing how good such a little change felt.

The realization felt like a bucket of ice water was dumped over him. He'd reached the point were _shaving_ was a major perk. If that wasn't messed up, Ghazan didn't know what was. It was hard to keep despair at bay in the cage. The days were blurring together, the only way he could keep track of time nowadays was by the guards' shift changes. _If there's a hell, it's probably a lot like this. _Ghazan despised what he had become. Only the thought of his friends needing him kept him going anymore.

He could hear the sound of a boat engine in the background. It must be time for the guards' shift change. It didn't really make a difference who specifically was guarding him. It wasn't like the new set of guards were going to let him out.

_Twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six…_

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><p>So there you have it. I'll be honest, this chapter feels a little bit... off. I don't really know why though. I've been tinkering with it for a week or so, rewriting a paragraph here and a sentence there and so on, but it never really clicked. Leave a review if you have some suggestions, I'd love to hear them.<p>

Ming Hua's up next, and our favorite armless waterbender has a lot of potential that I'm looking forward to. See you guys in a week! (God willing).


	3. Chapter 3

Ming Hua's up to bat. So how does an amputee waterbender handle being locked in a volcanic hole? About as well as you might guess.

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><p><strong>Chapter 3<strong>

Ming Hua tasted blood. Her dried out, chapped lips had finally split open somewhere. She ran a sandpapery tongue over her lips to find where, locating the source of the metallic taste in the middle of her bottom lip. Though it disgusted her, she drew the cut inside her mouth and began to suck on the blood, anything to get some moisture in her mouth.

Hanging in a cage above a volcanic pit, even a drop of water was incredibly precious, and hard to get. The White Lotus certainly knew how to hold a waterbender. At first, the thought that the peaceful, enlightened Order would be using the same waterbender restraining techniques as the imperialistic Fire Nation was darkly amusing. After years of having the bare minimum of water needed to survive, that amusement had dried up.

Every morning they would lower the tiniest cup into her cage, for her to psychically bend the water within into her mouth. If she didn't visibly swallow all of the water or tried to do anything else with it, the firebending guards would send waves of pure, concentrated heat at the cage from all sides until the water evaporated or she collapsed. That was all the water she got for the day, until they lowered the cup again in the evenings. Ming Hua had never learned to bloodbend (and frankly found the technique to be disgusting and abhorrent) but they still earthbended barricades to her cage's walls the day before a full moon, to blind her so she couldn't bend the guards into letting her out. Every two weeks, they would knock her out with something in her morning water that tasted vaguely of lichee nuts. She woke up in the evening bathed, rehydrated, and with any random injuries healed. That meant that three days from now, at the next refreshing day, they'd heal away her cut lip. That she didn't want them to made her furious.

They were being absurdly thorough, although after what had happened the times she had hidden away some water, it made sense that they didn't take any chances. The first time, Ming Hua had kept the morning water in her mouth and used it to pick the lock on her cage. Unfortunately, she hadn't been able to go far before they had surrounded her and subdued her but she did manage to slit the warden's throat with an icicle before she went down. That little stunt convinced them to remove the walkway between her cage's door and the perimeter. They rebended it into place whenever they needed to get in, which didn't happen often while she was conscious.

Her second escape attempt didn't even do that well. Trying to bend the sweat off one of the earthbenders had let her drop a few of them, but she didn't even get the little ball of water over to her cage's lock before she lost it to a blast of flame. That attempt made the White Lotus solely staff her prison with firebenders, not even keeping earth and water benders on site unless they needed them.

There just wasn't any way to escape, at least not for her. Being in a volcano, Ghazan could have busted out in a matter of seconds. P'Li would have just blown the cage apart, and any of the White Lotus who tried to stop her. And Zaheer could probably just convince the guards to let him go and join the Red Lotus. Sadly, Ming Hua lacked any of those sorts of talents. All she could do was endure.

She had a lot of practice enduring. She had withstood the Red Spot plague that had made her arms rot away from the inside, despite the healers' best efforts. And after she had agreed to let them take her arms to save her life, she had faced the long, arduous process of learning how to bend without them. At first, the lack of progress had made her snappish and angry, and she drove away the few members of her family who had survived the plague. She endured the loneliness that followed. And she grew stronger. Her bending improved, moving from only being able to use her feet to being able to bend with just her facial expressions. All everything she had been through, learning how to bend with her thoughts alone was almost a walk in the park.

That skill had let her rise quickly. Chief Unalaq quickly recruited her to be his behind the scenes enforcer, a role her new abilities and natural relentlessness left her uniquely suited. For nearly four years she quietly removed any threats to the chief of the Northern Water Tribe, be they enemies of the state or political dissenters. It was lonely work; the whole point of her being a hidden enforcer was that ideally no one would ever know she even existed. But by the end of the four years, she had finally proven her loyalty and usefulness enough to be let it on the true secret.

The Red Lotus. A secret society built around destabilizing the world's governments and returning humanity to its natural, chaotic, state. Ming Hua had been confused that her chief would be a part of an organization dedicated to destroying governmental authority, and by extension his own, but Unalaq had explained that he intended to use his power to help guide humanity to the right path and then he would step down.

Ming Hua didn't believe that for one second, but it wasn't her problem. She was having to learn to work on a team, one whose leader objected to her usual methods. Zaheer was all about bringing enlightenment to those that opposed them, while Ming Hua preferred the tried and true method of shoving an icicle through the neck. Ghazan was too laid back and mellow to share her views and P'Li would jump off a cliff if her boyfriend asked it of her, so Ming Hua found herself outvoted most of the time. Despite that ideological quibble, she rather enjoyed being part of a team instead of going solo. It was nice knowing people had your back and having someone to chat with about a mission afterwards.

Two years into her time in Zaheer's cell, the entire Red Lotus was aflutter with activity. The new avatar had been found, a lot earlier than usual she heard, and the Red Lotus wanted her. Zaheer in particular was almost desperate to get his hands on the five year old. Ming Hua could understand why. There were some people out there who would believe the avatar if she told them the sky was green. And for everyone else, having a super powerful bender like that fighting for anarchy would be enough to change a lot of minds.

The organization of the Red Lotus' leadership was murky and hard to understand. Intentionally so, people couldn't betray leaders they didn't know. Still, regardless of whoever was charge, Zaheer's cell was picked to be the ones to seize the young avatar and raise her as a Red Lotus. It made sense, Ming Hua had yet to see another cell that was even half as capable as hers and an avatar with her psychic waterbending and Ghazan's lavabending would be nearly invincible. P'Li had made it clear she would not be passing on her combustion bending; given how she described what it took to open the third eye Ming Hua couldn't really blame her for not wanting to do that to someone else. And so the four of them went to the Southern Water Tribe.

Ming Hua grit her teeth at the memory. They hadn't even gotten close to the avatar before the Whtie Lotus was on them. It was a hopeless fight. Ghazan had almost no earth to work with, being forced to use small, easily countered globs of lava. P'Li had been dropped within seconds by some old man with a boomerang who somehow knew exactly how to block her bending eye. Zaheer was too busy fighting off the avatar's father (so much for Unalaq's claim that he would keep his brother busy) to come up with a plan that would bring them victory. Ming Hua had probably done the best of them, but considering she never managed to land a single blow on her slippery airbending opponent, that was just sad. She had fully intended to go down swinging, but Zaheer ordered her to stand down. And now she was in a volcanic prison cell, waterless and helpess.

Still, she did what she could. She memorized the guards' rotations and their behaviors. She learned which tended to not get enough sleep, which were lazy, who were friends and who couldn't stand each other. After a while, she probably knew each the guards better than any of them knew each other.

After a while, sheer boredom made her take her observations a step farther. She began to speculate about their personal lives, things like their job satisfaction, their relationships, and interpersonal dramas. Once that door was open, she quickly jumped the bounds of reality and began to invent dramas for their lives.

Han was in a love-hate relationship with Ting, who just hated him. Macai dreamed of being named head warden of the prison, but was hampered by his general incompetence. Iroh secretly thought Firelord Ozai had the right idea and hated his name. On and on she went, weaving stories of her captive audience. It kept the boredom at bay, as much as she could.

There was a commotion on the upper levels of the prison. The guards were shouting and it someone was throwing fireballs around. Ming Hua looked up, wondering if Chan had finally snapped and started killing everyone like she predicted he wanted to.

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><p>Whew, that one went a bit off the rails of what I was planning. I was originally going to do this whole bit about her stories, but exploring the back story behind the kidnapping attempt got its hooks into me. Next comes P'Li. Again I'll try to have it up fairly quickly, but exams might have something to say about that.<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

Last, but definitely not least, here's P'Li.

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><p><strong>Chapter 4<strong>

Down in the dark, P'Li waited.

To be honest, the darkness wasn't really an issue for her. She'd spent most of her childhood in one lightless hole or another. The dark had long stopped holding any terror for her. Enough light slipped in through her cell's door that she could see enough to move without banging off the walls, that was all she really needed.

It was the cold that really got to her. It pervaded every fiber of her being, down to her bones. It leeched away her strength, forcing her to spend most of her time huddled against herself weakly trying to retain as much heat as possible, which was never enough. Some days she couldn't even remember what it felt like to be warm. In this state, firebending was beyond her and the idea of combustion bending was outright absurd even if she wasn't wearing a metal plate over her third eye. Never before had she known cold so intense it ached, a pain that sunk deep into her body and lingered.

Her first memories were of pain. The searing agony as Zhuong had her forehead torn open to unlock her third eye. He had told her she would thank him for it, and then threw her into the darkness to heal.

She lived in a stone cell barely the size of a bathroom. There was no light, aside from when food was shoved through a slot in the door twice a day. She waited down there, for how long she didn't know. Far past the time she needed to recover, that was for sure. Eventually, the heavy metal door rattled open and Zhuong took her back to the light.

He trained her, the whole day spent on learning firebending forms. Any failure or weakness was quickly punished, so P'Li simply learned not to fail. Hours later, she was taken back to her cell. She almost didn't make it before she collapsed.

She waited eagerly the next morning for Zhuong to return. She was still waiting when dinner arrived, and when she finally drifted off to sleep, she wondered why he hadn't come.

It was a whole week before Zhuong visited her again. Asking why it had taken him so long earned her another beating. Between blows, he explained to her that he was a busy man with many demands of his time. She should merely be grateful that he could spare any time at all for a mere weapon. Her lesson that day was made more difficult by the bruises forcing one of her eyes closed.

After eight sessions, Zhuong began to teach her how to open the hidden eye. At first, she accomplished nothing other than making her head feel as though it was going to split apart. Even Zhuong acknowledged that it was a difficult task; his punishment was fairly tame compared to earlier beatings.

The second combustion bending training session she actually managed to produce an explosion, though it was only a small one. That was for the best though, since she hadn't managed to project it properly and the energy exploded barely a foot in front of her. Zhuong actually offered some praise for her accomplishment.

"Good work, P'Li. I was beginning to think you were going to be another failure. Again."

And so she tried again. She failed, and suffered for it, but that was to be expected. By the end of the day, she had managed to produce explosions consistently, although her body was battered and bruised more from her explosions than from her punishments. She returned to her dark cell beaten and worn, but proud of her work.

It took another two sessions for her to master launching her explosions over a distance. Zhuong then had a starved and chained man brought in and told her to fire on him.

"Why? What has he done?"

Her words had been answered with a blow to the head. "I told you to. You need no other reason. Now, do it." And so she had, despite the begging and weeping. And when her face had been splattered with blood, she managed to keep from retching until she was out of Zhuong's sight.

She continued her training, eventually moving outside to fortress' courtyard to further test the range of her combustion bending. Every so often, Zhuong would have a prisoner brought before her for her to blow apart. On one notable occasion he had a group of them lined up in front of her, to test how many she could blast through. That experiment had left her sick to her stomach, despite her familiarity with death by that point.

She lost herself in the routine. The days passed in a cycle between darkness and death, the emptiness of her cell and the fury of fire and explosions. Then one day, the fortress came under attack by an unknown enemy. Waves of lava swamped the walls, melting the metal fortifications. A single fighter managed to evade the guards and dispatch the few that managed to cross his path. Zhuong had pulled her from her cell and had her with him in his sanctum. She was waiting there when the intruder broke the door in.

Zhuong had told her to blast the first person to enter, and she had fully intended to, but something had made her pause. And in that pause, Zaheer began to speak to her.

He asked her if she was happy, trapped in this prison of a home. If she would not better enjoy living without having to serve such a cruel and twisted man. Zhuong hit her and cursed her and told her to get on with killing him. And Zaheer asked why she allowed him to do that, when she was so much more powerful than him.

That was the first time P'Li used her combustion bending of her own free will.

Afterwards, Zaheer introduced her to Ghazan, the lavabender. P'Li had stammered and muttered, but Zaheer had understood. Ghazan brought down the entire castle, reducing it all to a pool of cooled lava. After that, she had been free to go wherever she wanted, but she chose to stay with them. She had asked Zaheer if that was odd, and he disagreed.

"It is only natural that you, who had been denied the most basic of freedoms, would instinctively see the value in our work."

And so she had. She followed the path the Red Lotus set her on and sought the freedom she had never knew she was lacking. And along the way, she had fallen for the hero who had rescued her from the cage of her own mind.

Zaheer had saved her from the darkness once, and she had hoped he would do so again. But as the years bled on, P'Li had to admit if he were capable of freeing her he would have done so by now. Far more likely he was rotting in some cleverly designed cell just as she was, with no hope of escape.

The rattle of the bridge extending echoed in the silence of the glacier. P'Li stood and tried to work some feeling into her frigid limbs as a bored voice drifted through the air.

"There's certainly no way anyone's breaking out of here."

"That's what we thought about the other three prisons." A vaguely familiar voice replied.

_Other three? _P'Li knew what that meant. She approached the cell door. She tried to sound nonchalant, but couldn't keep the shivers from her voice.

"Must be something exciting going on. No one interesting has visited me in thirteen years."

"Don't get used to it." The heavily built waterbender replied bluntly.

"He's out, isn't he?" _Zaheer is coming. _"Mmm, I'm feeling warmer already." For the first time in thirteen years, P'Li smiled.

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><p>And that's that. Hope you've enjoyed the ride as much as I enjoyed writing it. Let me know what you think, any advice, criticism, ideas for future stories, anything.<p> 


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